I don’t know how it happened, but somehow today I was focused and more motivated than I have been in a very long time.
🥳
🙏
Maybe a little bit of it comes as I looked at my badly sun damaged skin from years of working outdoors without sunscreen or long sleeves or anything and think about the choices that I’ve made that have led to my skin aging much quicker than it should.
My entire life I’ve had people who were shocked that I was as old as I was.
This last week was the first time in my life somebody wasn’t surprised when I said I was 42.
😅
I wonder if maybe looking at my arms and seeing how wrinkly they are and how much this elasticity of my skin has been destroyed from the sun damage compared to the parts of my skin that aren’t visible to the Sun… I think maybe that might have awakened in me a motivation to do better?
I’ve made so many dumb decisions in my life. I’m always just such a go go go go person. Oftentimes I’ve been a ready fire aim person, In the sense that I think more about accomplishing the objective than the consequences of going about it the way that I’m going about it.
Anyway, I don’t know if it was that or something else, but this morning I threw away some of the leftover junk food that I had, and I started planning out one heck of a detailed, to-do-list-filled day.
I guess having the to-do list that I’m going over isn’t anything different. But the really detailed nature of the to-do list, including things that have been important for me to do that I’ve been neglecting just because I’ve been far too overwhelmed, accompanied by the increased determination is definitely different than where I’ve been at.
I decided to start actually making a concerted effort to take my multivitamin pills. I tried to get a head start on hydration with the hot sweaty days. I actually put on sunscreen. 😶
I ate food, flossed and brushed, all before leaving the van.
Miracles of miracles.
Tick taped my ankles, socks and shoes on, ready to roll.
I broke my day up into five acts. Act one was everything I needed to do before leaving van home for the morning. Act 2 was everything I needed to do at my little Greenhouse staging area and on the hill before heading out to run errands.
Act 2 included taking the jump box from the van and hooking it up to my truck’s battery, organizing all my battery operated tools and electronics and getting them all charging– My Milwaukee batteries, my cell phones, my laptop, my scanner, my headlamp, etc.
I put the cooler that Roseanne gave me into my van. I loaded up all my recyclables into My truck, along with four tires to take to the recycling center, the tube TV that was in Rover to take to the recycling center as well, and two pallets, in the hopes that I might be able to get rid of them at the recycling center. 🤞
With my tire being ready to blow for my Honda, I also pulled it off And threw it in the bed of my truck, planning to have the tire replaced with a used tire at the local tire shop as part of Act 3.
Filled up my water bottles, took a picture of the pallets down at the deck, as I was going to try and get some pallets for my mom so she could load stuff on them in the basement and not worry about flooding causing any damage. Texted the lady who sells the pallets, and then It was time for Act 3.
I went to the recycling center, but it was between 11:00 and 12 :00, so they were on lunch break , so I went over and put my regular recyclables into the corresponding bins, drove over to where all the fallen trees from the tornado had been dumped and were being shredded into mulch . I asked what they were doing with the mulch, checking to see if they were giving it away for free because it was super high quality , but I guess they got contracts with some large mulch companies who are buying all the wood chips. So , no dice on that end.
Went back and waited in line for the special waste section of the recycling center to open back up. The guy there knows me by name because I’ve gone there so often. 🙃
I had to pay $7 to dispose of the TV , but they took the four tires for free, some old coolant flush or sealant chemical that looked absolutely nasty that had been in our garage for probably 15 years, and gratefully, they were willing to take the two pallets. Normally, they don’t take pallets, but they said they could put stuff on them that people bring in, so they took them. Yay! 🥳 Think there are maybe 10 or 11 left that need to be taken?
The tire place that I was going to get the used tire from didn’t have one in the right size, so I just went over to the Walmart supercenter to buy a new tire and have them put it on.
Gratefully, Walmart has in-store Wi-Fi, so I took the opportunity, while I was waiting for the tire to be put on, actually do some work for just answer and earn some money. I think it’s been nearly a month since I’ve actually made money working. 😅
Gratefully, there were some phone call opportunities that were relatively simple to do, and the automotive waiting area was quiet enough. That was nice. I think I probably answered maybe six questions while I was waiting? Not sure how many, but that’s probably about right.
My truck also needs tires, but the ones they had were super expensive. Well, they’re probably actually cheap, but truck tires are expensive. 😅
I wasn’t ready to plunk down Another $300 to put tires on a truck that is on its way out.
Speaking of which, the truck decided to start shifting really hard today. 😅 Time to sell him. But I don’t want to sell him until I have all my crap figured My pickup truck is the vehicle I’ve been using most these days, so… Going to hold on to him just a little longer.
In an effort to get cheaper tires, I went over to the junkyard, but they didn’t have the tires in the size I needed, or at least that I thought I needed. Then I looked at the tires on my truck, and I had two different size tires on my truck, which begged the question, what size tires am I supposed to have on my truck. I don’t think I’ve ever bought tires for my truck since I got it 5 years ago or so.
So I looked up the sizes, and I don’t think either of the sizes that I had on my truck were the sizes it was supposed to have, but that led to a new question because the places that were asking for the information for my vehicle or asking if I had a lift on the truck, and I had no idea. I certainly hadn’t put one on, but I didn’t know, so I looked underneath and found that yes, the truck did have a 2-in lift, or maybe it’s just a leveling kit.
Anyway, I came away realizing that I don’t have a flying clue what size tires I’m supposed to have on there. I think the recommended tires for the lift I have are actually large and expensive.
Lovely.
And I know that when you get different size tires, you’re supposed to change the information in the car to recognize the new tire size to make sure the speedometer and everything else are synced properly.
Can of worms. I just wanted two new tires. 😅
I left the junkyard scratching my head and looking up the information about what tire sizes I needed and never figured it out. Went to go get some pallets for my mom from the people I buy plastic pallets from in Lowell. They told me they had seven of the kind that I wanted which was what my mom wanted, but I got there, and they only had five of that kind, and I think all five were badly damaged.
Ugh.
So I bought two pallets of a different size and style. Good pallets for sure, but different size and style. I went home and grabbed the two pallets I had left that were the same style that I got for my mom before. Then I drove over to my mom’s house, unloaded the pallets, loaded up some Stuff that Jenna had left at the house. Loaded back up the food storage that my mom was trying to leave for Jenna that accidentally got brought over to the new house anyway. Chatted with Mom for a bit, and then headed home.
Act 4:
Unloaded all the stuff for Jenna at her place onto the basement steps area. Helped Landon set up Starlink. He had already done most of the work, but I was able to help with some things that he was having troubles with.
Chatted with Jordan And everyone a little bit about sicknesses and food poisoning and what not. Jim has been super crazy sick for a few days. Lost somewhere between 15 and 20 lbs since getting sick, almost certainly mostly water. Most likely super badly dehydrated.
Hope he feels better soon. I’ve been there… ended up in the ER once with similar symptoms. Now I have more of a strategy for what to do when I have those kinds of issues so I don’t need to go to the ER or the urgent Care anymore. I just have a particular regiment that I know I need to follow to not… die. 🙃
Cleaned out the bed of my pickup truck, distributing things that belonged in various barns where they went, and sweeping out the Rock and dirt and mortar and tree leftovers.
Much better in there now. 🙃
Decided to see if Rover’s AC was just a lack of refrigerant issue, like turned out to be the case with the Volkswagen, or if it had bigger problems.
Vacuumed down the system, and then set it to see if it would hold the vacuum, and it did!
First test passed!
Then I set it to vacuum the system fully to remove any moisture. In the meantime started cleaning my van a little bit more. Moved the skid steer back down to the greenhouse area, grabbed my pickup truck and some refrigerant, bringing some more things from down by the greenhouse area and putting them where they needed to be in the different barns.
Went over to start filling refrigerant In Rover, only to realize that I had forgotten to open the valves, so all of the vacuum that the vacuum pump had been performing on the system for the last 45 plus minutes had only been vacuuming out the lines of my manifold gauge set and not the actual system.
Oops.
So for the next 45 minutes or so, as I waited for the vacuum pump to do its job, I worked on JustAnswer questions on my phone. My tentative goal for the day was $200 earned, and gratefully, I reached my goal.
After the system had been vacuumed down for a decent amount of time, I went ahead and filled it, and hooray, it took the refrigerant and started blowing cold!!!
The system takes quite a bit of refrigerant. Nearly four cans, but by the last can, it was blowing nice and cold.
Yeehaw!
Now at the end of the day, when it’s super hot outside, and the van has been baking all day, I can at least turn the AC on for a few minutes to cool the van down.
How awesome is that!?!?
I’m feeling a little spoiled. 🙃
After getting the AC fixed, hooked up my steam cleaner to get it heating up the water so that I could steam clean the cup holders. The cup holders are all nasty from the previous owner and I haven’t done anything yet to clean them , so if I’m going to be keeping stuff in my cup holders, I’d rather have them be a little cleaner than they are right now. 🙃
While I waited for the heater to heat up the steamer to the necessary temperature, I put some more sticky traps around the inside of Rover, cleaned up a bit inside, organized my food a little better, etc.
Did the steam cleaning for a little bit. Didn’t do a whole lot because it was late, and I was tired, but I at least got the cup holders and the front area.
Texted people, ate dinner, Read about what was going on with the assassination attempt of former President Trump.
Crazy times.
Hopefully we can make a better world.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 